Awards & Appointments

Congratulations to Margaret Bauer, the editor of the North Carolina Literary Review, who has been recognized by the Council of Editors of Learned Journals.  The CELJ announced Bauer as the winner of The Parnassus Award for Significant Editorial Achievement at the group's annual meeting held during the Modern Language Association conference in December in Chicago. Mikko Tuhkanen accepted the award for Bauer.

The competition for "The Parnassus Award," first awarded in 2004, "solicits a single issue, published within the previous 3 years, that constitutes an unusually high realization of the belletristic journal's mission in combination with application of the highest standards of 'learned' editorial practice -- understood to encompass editing for selection of high-quality content, compelling arrangement of contents, style, visual appeal and readability. ... The award recognizes significant realization of editorial mission." Parnassus refers to Mount Parnassus, a mountain of bare rock in Greece that rises above Delphi, north of the Gulf of Corinth.  According to Greek mythology, this mountain was sacred to Apollo and was home to the Muses.

Bauer has served as editor of the NCLR since 1997, the magazine founded in 1992 by Alex Albright, Eva Roberts, and W. Keats Sparrow.  The literary journal, housed in ECU's Department of English, has won many design awards in the past, but never The Parnassus Award.  Bauer earned her doctorate in Southern literature from the University of Tennessee and joined the ECU faculty in 1996.

The CELJ judges commented about Bauer's work: "In 2007, the journal marked the 100th anniversary of its founding institution, East Carolina University, as well as the completion of its serialized dictionary of North Carolina writers.  Its design quality is impressive, but what most impressed our judges was the sheer tensile power of the writing, a signal tribute to the sustained work of editor Margaret D. Bauer ... "

In response to her award, Bauer said, "In 1993 NCLR founding editor Alex Albright received CELJ's best new journal award in recognition of his achievement in creating this unique amalgam of literary magazine with elements of the scholarly journal.  Alex's were large shoes to fill when I took over as editor in 1997, and I appreciate this award's testimony that NCLR continues to live up to its early promise."

The Council of Editors of Learned Journals is an allied organization of the Modern Language Association of more than 450 editors of scholarly journals devoted to study in the humanistic disciplines.  The awards given by the Council also include Best New Journal, Best Special Issue, and Best Journal Design.

The recent issue of NCLR (2007) is titled "Commemorating 100 Years of Writers and Writing at East Carolina University" and features "Now the Feds Are Paying Us Not To Grow Our Best-known Carcinogen, What or What Shall We Eastern North Carolinians Export?" an essay by Allan Gurganus; "Writing His Way Home: An Interview with Samm-Art Williams" by Laura Grace Pattillo; and "Culture at a Crossroads," an essay by Robert Morgan.